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Luzerne County officials are reconsidering a plan to outsource the supervision of foster care and kinship care to private providers after hearing objections from two state representatives and a Children and Youth Services supervisor.

State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, and state Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-Butler Township, are expected to address county council on Tuesday.

"I feel very strongly about doing everything I can to prevent this very bad idea," Mundy said Thursday.

The county Children and Youth agency has initiated a plan to eliminate the in-house units that supervise foster care and kinship care and would outsource all foster-care and kinship-care supervision to private providers.

The change would impact about 70 foster families and more than 200 children in the foster care and kinship care, officials said. Kinship care is a program in which a child lives with a relative because of separation from parents.

"I am already hearing that foster families are very unhappy and unwilling to continue providing care under these new conditions," Mundy wrote in a Nov. 17 email to county council members.

The county already forced foster parents supervised in-house to choose a private provider for supervision, Mundy said, adding they had a choice of nine or 10 private providers. In 2010, then-Gov. Ed Rendell signed legislation authored by Mundy to create uniform standards to protect foster children's rights.

Toohil's parents have been foster parents for more than 40 children. She wrote a Nov. 13 email to Councilman Rick Morelli.

"The administrative changes, which include staff cuts and the use of private entities for services, are problematic for a number of reasons and will prove to be more costly for us, as a county," Toohil wrote. "I would like to discuss the various changes that are being effectuated with the council in the hopes that some of these proposed cuts will be restored."

County Manager Robert Lawton has proposed a 2013 budget that would allocate $260.1 million. The Children and Youth allocation is $42.4 million, $1.5 million less than the agency's request and $1.8 million less than this year's allocation.

During a council meeting on Nov. 14, Councilman Rick Williams questioned acting Director of Human Services Mary Dysleski about outsourcing foster-care supervision. Dysleski said foster-care and kinship-care supervision are not mandated services.

"We provided them before because it was nice for the county to have some control over that," she said. "We seemed to get better results if we had control over the foster-care and the kinship-care types of programs. But again with reduced funding and having to provide our resources to provide the mandated services, sometimes those are the services that we had to let go."

Williams asked: "Are we really saving money by going to contracted services, as opposed to using employees?"

"We are not sure yet," Dysleski replied. "We think there will be a savings. We haven't done this. We are going to see how it works out, but yes, we do think there will be a small savings."

During Monday's council meeting, Children and Youth supervisor Judy Newman claimed outsourcing will increase costs for the county, noting the state reimburses 80 percent of costs.

According to this year's budget, the net cost of the Children and Youth agency is $6.2 million in county general funds. The agency request for 2013 had a net cost of $6.6 million, and the net cost is $6 million in Lawton's 2013 budget.

Council plans to adopt a final budget Dec. 11, and Lawton wants to keep the county property tax rate at 5.32 mills - $532 for $100,000 in assessed value. The proposed budget would eliminate funding for 17 vacant caseworker jobs in Children and Youth.

Castano explained to council Nov. 14 why he wants to eliminate the in-house units for foster care and kinship care.

"I have used a strategy to reduce caseload sizes intentionally because I am of the strong opinion that that ensures safety, and that's my primary responsibility," Castano said. "So we are now contracting for those services in foster care, reallocating that staff to intake and outgoing positions, which are essential to mandated services for the agency."

He added he "had meetings with the private provider network" and "discussed that transition" with affected employees.

"Change isn't easy, but they have all been cooperative, and we believe we can make that change," Castano said.

This year's budget allocated almost $12.3 million in wages and benefits for Children and Youth employees. The agency requested $12.4 million for wages and benefits in 2013, and Lawton proposed $11.5 million.

mbuffer@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2073

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